This Side of Water

In This Side of Water, Maureen Pilkington’s bright debut collection, precise and vivid language delivers flawed characters to their moments of reckoning. A married woman goes to the cemetery to resurrect her father; a young girl at a beach club witnesses her parents’ infidelity; an icy New Year’s Eve leads a devoted husband to violent clarity; a teenager spies on her mother and a Catholic priest; a Russian “dancer” visits her American husband and plays a dangerous game. In these sixteen stories, the backdrop of water—the Long Island Sound, the sulfur polluted Monangahela River, a koi pond, a basin of holy water, a tear in a boy’s eye—provides a salve for these characters, ferrying them to personal ports of renewal and resolution.

In This Side of Water, colectia de debut stralucitoare a lui Maureen Pilkington, un limbaj precis si viu ofera personaje defecte momentelor lor de calcul. O femeie casatorita merge la cimitir pentru a-l invia pe tatal ei; o tanara fata la un club pe plaja este martora infidelitatii parintilor ei; un revelion inghetat duce un sot devotat la claritate violenta; o adolescenta o spioneaza pe mama ei si pe un preot catolic; o „dansatoare” rusa isi viziteaza sotul american si joaca un joc periculos.